Woman charged with beating 5-year-old son at Brockton market

Several customers intervened on Saturday when a woman began hitting her son in the checkout line inside Shaw's supermarket on Brockton's East Side. Police later charged Marie Lyssa Mars, 42, of 55 City Hall Square, apt. 515, Brockton, with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a child under 14 and assault and battery.

BROCKTON — Lorna Green-Baker says she was standing in the checkout line at the supermarket Saturday afternoon when she saw the woman hitting the young boy. The 5-year-old boy began crying, and cowering away from the woman, said Green-Baker, who tried to intervene. She said she asked the woman to stop hitting the boy, but she wouldn't. "I said, 'Stop hitting, stop hitting your son. Stop beating him.' She looked at me and said 'I will beat him anytime I want to beat him,'" Green-Baker, of Bridgewater, said Sunday. "She started just pounding and pounding on him, just pounding and pounding." Moments later, inside Shaw's supermarket on the city's East Side, other customers stepped forward asking the woman to stop hitting the child, Green-Baker said. Some customers called police. Police later charged the woman, Marie Lyssa Mars, 42, of 55 City Hall Square, apt. 515, Brockton, with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a child under 14 and assault and battery, Brockton police Lt. William Hallisey said. The dangerous weapon was the carriage carrying the young boy, who is Mars' son, Hallisey said. Witnesses told police the boy, seated in the carriage, held on as Mars rammed the front of the carriage into the door while leaving the store. "She lost complete control," Hallisey said Sunday, adding that police reviewed store surveillance video that captured the incident. Attempts to view the surveillance video on Monday were unsuccessful. Mars was held on $5,000 cash bail after pleading innocent to the charges during her arraignment in Brockton District Court Monday, according to the clerk's office. She is due back in court on March 3. Attempts to reach Mars on Sunday were unsuccessful. It was unclear Monday who Mars' attorney is. Attorney Jeremy Kay, whom the court gave as Mars' attorney, said he has represented Mars in the past but did not represent her during her arraignment Monday. Police also filed a Chapter 51A report with the state following the incident, Hallisey said. The report is the legal mechanism under which the state Department of Children and Families can investigate alleged abuse or neglect of a child under the age of 18. Agency spokeswoman Cayenne Isaksen said Sunday the agency received a report and is investigating. She would not comment further. Late Monday morning, police responded to Mars' home with state investigators. Police said nobody was home and the Department of Children and Families would attempt another visit at a later time. Officers responded to the Shaw's supermarket at 715 Crescent St. at 4:12 p.m. Saturday after receiving reports of a woman beating a small child inside the supermarket. When Mars left the store, nearly a dozen customers followed her to the parking lot outside and noted the plate number of the red Dodge Caravan that she left in, Green-Baker said. Customers then called police. A short time later, officers stopped the Caravan on School Street and arrested Mars, Hallisey said. When officers told Mars that several people had witnessed her hitting the boy, she told officers that the boy "was a very active child, she was just disciplining him," Hallisey said in recounting what Mars told police. Mars was released on $40 cash bail early Sunday morning. She was scheduled to be arraigned on Monday in Brockton District Court. "It was horrid," said Green-Baker, a mother of three and grandmother of four. "It was just a shock, so traumatic to see someone beat on a child like that." Follow Maria Papadopoulos on Twitter @MariaP_ENT.